Le Mans 2013 Thursday qualifying
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Lotterer had just done an even faster first sector, and was up overall with just the final one to go; but aborted the lap.
Starting to get a bit close at the front of LMP2. Oliver Turvey in the #38 Jota Zytek cuts the gap to the lead #26 ORECA machine to just a second, while Olivier Pla has also improved the #24 OAK Racing Morgan's best time by a fraction. It's very close, with just a few tenths between second and fifth in class.
Two seconds turned out to be no problem for Aguas. He found an amazing 4.4s instead to set comfortably the best GTE Am time of Q3 and climb to eighth overall.
Yellow flag
Lucas di Grassi has a spin at the Dunlop chicane.
He was massively on it; having set the fastest first sector of all on the previous lap. He seemed to lose time behind a GTE car on the run through Indianapolis and Arnage.
He was massively on it; having set the fastest first sector of all on the previous lap. He seemed to lose time behind a GTE car on the run through Indianapolis and Arnage.
Marc Lieb in the #92 Manthey Porsche finds some time, improving that car's best by a few tenths of a second and leapfrogging the #98 Aston Martin.
Crash
Looks like Aguas was pushing too hard too soon as the #81 Ferrari is now in the gravel at the exit of Indianapolis, facing the wrong way.
Lucas di Grassi has been reported to the stewards for dangerous driving. Presumably that will be for driving against the flow of traffic as he attempted to recover from his spin a few minutes ago.
Stephane Sarrazin has just set the #8 Toyota's best lap of qualifying and gone ahead of the sister TS030 HYBRID into fourth by just two hundredths of a second.
It's up to fellow Frenchman Nicolas Lapierre, now behind the wheel of the #7 car, to respond.
It's up to fellow Frenchman Nicolas Lapierre, now behind the wheel of the #7 car, to respond.
The #49 Pecom ORECA has been reported to the stewards for speeding in the pits. It's currently 10th in class, and 18th overall.
A terrific lap in GTE Am from Marco Cioci in the #61 AF Corse Ferrari that was earlier spun by co-driver Jack Gerber. The car is now third, ahead of Pascal Gibon's #67 Imsa Porsche.
Now that's interesting. Race control is investigating an incident between the LMP2 Race Performance ORECA of Patric Niederhauser and the 8 Star Ferrari. Ah. So maybe Aguas was helped off...
Yellow flag at the second Mulsanne chicane - Eric Lux, who shunted the #41 Greaves Motorsport in practice, spins on the exit. He gets going again, no doubt to the relief of the Caterham-backed team...
Allan Simonsen's just done a 3m59.6s lap; the fastest in GTE Am so far tonight in the #95 Aston Martin. That's still a second off the provisional pole time set by the car yesterday.
With only three minutes to go though, it looks unlikely that anybody can knock him off his perch.
With only three minutes to go though, it looks unlikely that anybody can knock him off his perch.
Stopwatch
Speak of the devil, Simonsen's just gone round in 3m57.8, a second quicker than his GTE Am provisional pole and ahead - yes, ahead - of Oliver Gavin's factory GTE Pro Corvette!
Stopwatch
Change for pole in GTE Pro - well, for a moment! Mucke briefly takes top spot in the #96 Aston Martin but Frederic Makowiecki - who had held provisional pole for so long - takes the #99 car back to the top of the class times with a 3m54.635s.
Checkered flag
Chequered flag is out.
There are still plenty of cars on-track though; including the #2 Audi.
Buemi and Gene have both crossed the line and that more or less confirms that the LMP1 order at the front of the field will not change.
Stopwatch
Right at the end of the session, a change at the top of LMP2. Olivier Pla in the #24 OAK Morgan-Nissan goes almost a full second faster than the #26 Delta-ADR car, which was the long-time class leader.
It's pole for Loic Duval in the #2 Audi he shares with Allan McNish and Tom Kristensen.
The car failed to go any quicker today, but Duval's 3m22.349s lap of Wednesday proved quick enough for the top spot.
It's an all-Audi top-three for the first time since 2002. The #1 of Lotterer/Treluyer/Fassler and the #3 of Gene/Jarvis/di Grassi complete the front three.
The car failed to go any quicker today, but Duval's 3m22.349s lap of Wednesday proved quick enough for the top spot.
It's an all-Audi top-three for the first time since 2002. The #1 of Lotterer/Treluyer/Fassler and the #3 of Gene/Jarvis/di Grassi complete the front three.
Mucke had no answer to 'Mako' in the end, but Aston Martin will be delighted to lock out the top two spots in GTE Pro. However, they'll also be very aware that we're barely getting started here...
The Bruni/Fisichella/Malucelli AF Ferrari ends up fourth fastest in GTE Pro after failing to improve. It was bumped down right at the very end of the session by the Manthey Porsche of Marc Lieb, who had been steadily improving in the #92 car throughout.
Just like in GTE Pro, Aston Martin also topped GTE Am with Allan Simonsen's #96 Vantage on pole from Paolo Ruberti in the #88 Proton Porsche by over a second. Jamie Campbell-Walter put the second Aston in third with Marco Cioci fourth in the #61 AF Corse Ferrari.
A good effort from Thomas Holzer in the #32 Lotus-Praga. That car missed a lot of track time thanks to the team's Wednesday court case, but Holzer has hauled it to 23rd overall - that's 15th in class. It may not sound overly impressive, but it will start ahead of the sister #31 car, which did not suffer the same delays in preparation.
Great news for Brits (yes, we're being biased becuase we are a British website after all) as we have polesitters in three of the four classes.
LMP1/overall: Allan McNish
LMP2: Alex Brundle
GTE Pro: Rob Bell
OK, so none of them actually set the pole times, but they're still great achievements.
We'll also claim GTE Am pole as the Danish-crewed Aston Martin is, of course, a product of Newport Pagnell.
LMP1/overall: Allan McNish
LMP2: Alex Brundle
GTE Pro: Rob Bell
OK, so none of them actually set the pole times, but they're still great achievements.
We'll also claim GTE Am pole as the Danish-crewed Aston Martin is, of course, a product of Newport Pagnell.
Checkered flag
So, here are the top three in each class for the 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours:
LMP1/overall:
1 #2 Audi (Duval/Kristensen/McNish)
2 #1 Audi (Treluyer/Lotterer/Fassler)
3 #3 Audi (Gene/di Grassi/Jarvis)
LMP2
1 #24 OAK Morgan-Nissan (Pla/Heinemeier Hansson/Brundle)
2 #26 Delta-ADR ORECA-Nissan (Martin/Rusinov/Conway)
3 #38 Jota Zytek-Nissan (Dolan/Turvey/Luhr)
GTE Pro
1 #99 Aston Martin (Makowiecki/Bell/Senna)
2 #97 Aston Martin (Mucke/Dumbreck/Turner)
3 #92 Manthey Porsche (Lieb/Lietz/Dumas)
GTE Am
1 #95 Aston Martin (Simonsen/Nygaard/Poulsen)
2 #88 Proton Porsche (Ruberti/Ried/Roda)
3 #96 Aston Martin (Campbell-Walter/Goethe/Hall)
LMP1/overall:
1 #2 Audi (Duval/Kristensen/McNish)
2 #1 Audi (Treluyer/Lotterer/Fassler)
3 #3 Audi (Gene/di Grassi/Jarvis)
LMP2
1 #24 OAK Morgan-Nissan (Pla/Heinemeier Hansson/Brundle)
2 #26 Delta-ADR ORECA-Nissan (Martin/Rusinov/Conway)
3 #38 Jota Zytek-Nissan (Dolan/Turvey/Luhr)
GTE Pro
1 #99 Aston Martin (Makowiecki/Bell/Senna)
2 #97 Aston Martin (Mucke/Dumbreck/Turner)
3 #92 Manthey Porsche (Lieb/Lietz/Dumas)
GTE Am
1 #95 Aston Martin (Simonsen/Nygaard/Poulsen)
2 #88 Proton Porsche (Ruberti/Ried/Roda)
3 #96 Aston Martin (Campbell-Walter/Goethe/Hall)
Breaking news
...And you can read exactly how Audi - headed by the #2 car - locked out the top three positions with the full qualifying report, which is now online:
Duval hangs on to pole for Audi
Duval hangs on to pole for Audi
Audi Le Mans WEC 2013
That's it for tonight. Thanks for joining us.
You can catch up with all the important news tomorrow by coming back to AUTOSPORT.com.
Good night.
You can catch up with all the important news tomorrow by coming back to AUTOSPORT.com.
Good night.
By: Jamie O'Leary, Scott Mitchell, Gary Watkins, Sam Tremayne
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